Oh no! I’ve Had my Phone Stolen
“Being the ‘best you can be’ is really only possible when you are deeply connected to another. Splendid isolation is for planets, not people.”
Sue Johnson
I’m crammed in on the tiny Correcaminos bus. It’s about 10pm and I’m about to get off; there’s a stop to go. Three twenty-something guys get on at the back where I’m struggling to move towards the exit. The bus is rammed. It’s exactly the kind of environment they’ll get you to take advantage of if you’re enrolled at any school of professional pickpocketing.
I face one youngish guy, though it’s not till after that I make the assumption they’re working together. To manoeuvre myself through the crush to get out the door, I grab hold of the bars above me with both hands. There’s about 30 seconds before the bus reaches my stop. I brush heavily through and get off.
Thirty seconds is enough for a skilled operator. It was seamless. It’s why wolves hunt in packs.
And that’s the first time a young man has put his hand into my front pocket.
I have a brief, anxious period of catastrophising, though by the next morning I’m over it. My inconvenience pales into relative insignificance when I meet the eyes of the many people here who struggle to meet essential daily needs. There’s no place for the super-vegan, yoga brigade out here.
I buy a whole kilo of blueberries for 10Sol (£2) from a street seller; the police will move her on soon.
I learned to work with my experience writing and performing songs. I’ve made a lot of art, yet it often left a part of me behind. I was in splendid isolation and I made a lot of material in private. It was when I learned to collaborate, to let go, to be with myself more deeply, to relinquish the driver’s seat of what happened to the material next, to trust in what became alive in the moment when I gave away my precious creations; that’s when it got juicy, and I allowed myself, via collaboration, to become deeply connected to another.
And I remember sitting in the darkness and silence of my loft some nights, my soul lost to it’s deepest, most painful despair, and all that remained was to meet my deepest self, and pick up the guitar. Yet it’s not my song I write. It’s the song that happens to me. Call it what you like, divine inspiration, the muse arriving, whatever, but the music comes through my body into the world.
So these days, I’m all in.
So how do I work with this ‘I’ve had my phone stolen’ thing?
I go into my Monday class. We use language and role play around getting things stolen. We talk about values. Then we start planning the end of course presentation, which, inevitably, evolves into a comic, scenic, phonetic drama of my Saturday night, thieves and all.
The teachers catalyse the idea, and it’s a joy for me to be able to bring it all together: in words, sounds, poetry, movement, character.. There’s something special about being together simply for the joy and fun of it. Sure, I want to facilitate the learning of language; yet it’s the connection, trust and gentle humility of the ‘performers’ that makes the rehearsal so special.
We create the ‘bus’. Manuel, who’s playing me, edges through the ‘passenger’ crowd as they swing from side to side mimicking a real-time sway. Peruvian accents heighten the comedy. If you’ve ever been in a performance and felt that uniquely special sense of connection, you’ll have felt this. Everyone is out of their comfort zone somehow, and it’s deliciously funny to have eveything laid so bare. Performance reveals us, in all our flaws. No-one steps out and says “this is not my thing”. This ship’s going to sail. And the director in me loves keeping it all nicely together.
Sue Johnson’s words are from her work in the fields of psychology on bonding, attachment and adult romantic relationships.. And our gentle chaos reminds me, that it is only when we are revealed to one another, in all our joys, struggles and shame, and in those corners of self where it’s more comfortable to tuck ourselves away, that we discover the best that we can be.
